What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is marketing through digital technologies. Digital marketing includes more than just online marketing, because it includes not only channels that can be accessed via the internet, but everything that is digital. So for example also television, SMS and DOOH (Digital Out Of Home) and radio. Few of today's marketing channels are not part of digital marketing. A paper newspaper, a bus shelter or a poster are examples of non-digital marketing, also known as traditional marketing.

The person responsible for digital marketing within a company is often the digital marketing manager, the marketing manager or the online marketing manager. Within the department that deals with digital marketing, the team has the following disciplines:  SEO ,  SEA , email marketing, social media, CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), UX (User Experience), DTP, programming, app development, copywriting, PR and video production.

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1. DIGITAL MARKETING MEANING

So digital marketing is marketing through digital technologies. But what is marketing and what are digital technologies?

Marketing  can be explained in many ways, a simple yet fairly comprehensive definition is the promotion of products and services. But then you do the marketing too short, because it is about understanding the customer and tailoring the product and communication to the customer. It is therefore also about gathering insights and building a relationship with the customer.

Digital technologies  is a broad concept, but you can think of the technologies and media that work via the internet, are displayed via a screen and / or devices that work on electricity. In addition to the aforementioned examples (TV, SMS, DOOH), we give a number of them to give you a better picture of what digital technologies and platforms are: Narrowcasting (screens in stores), Facebook, Google, digital newspapers (news websites), e- mail, apps, CRM, chatbots, Bluetooth, GPS, VR and AR.

 

2. THE WORLD OF DIGITAL MARKETING

As you read, the world of digital marketing is very extensive. Digital is not something new, but since the emergence of the internet in the 1990s, people have been dealing with it on a daily basis. Due to this shift, more and more technologies, platforms and tools have emerged and companies are increasingly devoting themselves to their digital marketing activities.

The world of digital marketing is one of many developments. Some of these are: the increasing internet speed, the increasing consumption and thus the generation of data, the media becoming more mobile, the increase in the searches via voice, the visualization of content (through images and videos) and the acquisition of a permanent place for social within the media budget.

The customer is in the midst of all these developments and expects companies to provide the optimal experience. As a result, digital marketing is increasingly using buyer and customer journey mapping. The customer journey can go across different channels and platforms. With journey mapping, we look at which channels the (potential) customer touches at the different stages of his purchase journey and / or customer life cycle. Here we look at what behavior he exhibits, what his (information) needs are, which touchpoints there are, what content connects to them and possibly what the current customer experience is during that step.

The journey can be divided in different ways, the easiest way to divide the buyer journey is using the following principle: awareness, consideration and decision. Where awareness is the stage where the customer becomes familiar with the brand and the solution. In the consideration phase, he makes comparisons and considerations. He makes his decision in the decision phase. There are numerous extensions to these stages, often depending on company specific situations. From an organizational perspective, there are stages that run parallel to the above phases. These are: reach, lead generation, lead nurturing and conversion.

Digital marketing is not only about potential customers, but also about customers. When looking at the customer journey, the following phases can be taken into account: initiate (possibly split into welcome and onboarding), engage (keeping a customer active, with possible 'grow': upsell and cross sell) and advocate / recommend, which is all about ambassadors.

A typical breakdown of marketing activities plotted at these stages would be as follows:

Range : TV, SEO, SEA, PR, Social.

Lead generation : CRO, content marketing, SMS.

Lead nurturing : Marketing automation , e-mail marketing, video marketing, retargeting.

Conversion : CRO, email marketing, direct mail.

Customer  (Initiate / engage / loyalty): SMS, direct mail, app, email marketing.

This is just a typical layout, you can use many of the marketing activities for other phases if you organize this creatively.

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3. WHY YOU DO DIGITAL MARKETING

People spend more time online and are increasingly in contact with digital technologies. If you want to be where your customer is, you will have to participate in this development. There are also many advantages to digital marketing:

Measurable : Because the interaction with digital technologies often provides data (in many cases anonymously), the number of interactions can be measured. This could include impressions of a web page, clicks in an email, the number of conversions on an ad and the number of orders for a product. This creates more insight and control over the activities, costs and results and allows you to evaluate better.

Costs : You can reach a larger audience for less money with digital media than with traditional media. This of course depends on the channel and content type you choose.

Targeting & segmentation : It differs per channel what you know about a customer and / or what you can target and segment, but in many cases it can be specific to the person (anonymized), such as: visitors to your website, people with a specific interest or a defining characteristic such as age or profession. This allows you to communicate more specifically and you are more relevant to the recipient.

Geographic reach : You can reach people all over the world through digital technologies. For example, you don't have to have an office abroad or send promotional materials around the world.

Availability : In many cases, digital technologies are available 24 hours a day, allowing you to operate on times when the customer is open to them.

Automation : Many of the digital marketing channels can be partly automated, so that you can continuously communicate with prospects and customers with a single effort.

Non-linear : Because the communications can be automated, this means that this does not necessarily have to be communicated in all directions at the same time. This can be different up to the customer level, which means that communication is better suited to that specific customer.

As you can see, there are many advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing. Enough reason to work on it!